Kant declares that the idea of freedom is the source of our idea of personality,—personality consists in the freedom of the whole soul from the mechanism of nature. Lotze, Metaphysics, § 244—“So far as, and so long as, the soul knows itself as the identical subject of inward experience, it is, and is named simply for that reason, substance.” Illingworth, Personality, Human and Divine, 32—“Our conception of substance is derived, not from the physical, but from the mental world. Substance is first of all that which underlies our _mental_ affections and manifestations.” James, Will to Believe, 80—“Substance, as Kant says, means ‘das Beharrliche,’ the abiding, that which will be as it has been, because its being is essential and eternal.” In this sense we have an intuitive belief in an abiding substance which underlies our own thoughts and volitions, and this we call the soul. But we also have an intuitive belief in an abiding substance which underlies all natural phenomena and all the events of history, and this we call God. Among those who hold to this general view of an intuitive knowledge of God may be mentioned the following:—Calvin, Institutes, book I, chap. 3; Nitzsch, System of Christian Doctrine, 15-26, 133-140; Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 1:78-84; Ulrici, Leib und Seele, 688-725; Porter, Human Intellect, 497; Hickok, Rational Cosmology, 58-89; Farrar, Science in Theology, 27-29; Bib. Sac., July, 1872:533, and January, 1873:204; Miller, Fetich in Theology, 110-122; Fisher, Essays, 565-572; Tulloch, Theism, 314-336; Hodge, Systematic Theology, 1:191-203; Christlieb, Mod. Doubt and Christian Belief, 75, 76; Raymond, Syst. Theology, 1:247-262; Bascom, Science of Mind, 246, 247; Knight, Studies in Philos. and Lit., 155-224; A. H. Strong, Philosophy and Religion, 76-89. I. First Truths in General. 1. _Their nature._ A. Negatively.—A first truth is not (_a_) Truth written prior to consciousness upon the substance of the soul—for such passive knowledge implies a materialistic view of the soul; (_b_) Actual knowledge of which the soul finds itself in possession at birth—for it cannot be proved that the soul has such knowledge; (_c_) An idea, undeveloped at birth, but which has the power of self-development apart from observation and experience—for this is contrary to all we know of the laws of mental growth.